Just out of curiousity, would you leave a wounded Shadowrunner behind? or would you try to get him out with you...
I really do not see this trend altering unless the wounded mean even less to you than your opposition does... Even in a guerilla warfare situation, it is generally frowned upon to leave your wounded behind for the enemy to capture...

Keep the Faith

A non cohesive force will leave people behind because they rout. However, a cohesive force will try to pick up their friends. Huge difference between the effectiveness of the two groups. Unit cohesion tends to matter more in combat than superior rifles.

As for heavier calibers it depends. The lighter calibers allow for more accuracy at combat ranges with automatic fire, while the heavier calibers are for armor piercing and range. I noticed they are tending to mix 5.56 with 7.62 weapons in a unit. The inclusion of grenade launchers is probably where assault weapons are going.

The 9mm was created for the Luger pistol because the original round for the 7.65 mm Luger did not have enough stopping power a hundred years ago. 9mm was the largest size the designer could squeeze into the Luger with out massive retro fitting at the factory.

I remembering reading (do not remember which magazine) that the US military is looking for a replacing the M9 with a .45 round excluding the M1911.

It's probably best not to leave anyone behind, because that demoralizes the enemy you're guerilla-ing. The NVA and VC did that during Vietnam and everyone writes in the history books that it caused demoralization among US forces.

Of course not.

Dead, sure. Wounded, no, never leave a wounded man behind.

If he couldn't walk out on his own and was slowing us down too much, bullet to the forehead time.

Followed by acid into the ear canal to get rid of any incriminating grey matter.

Wounded men can talk, yeesh.



-karma

I imagine it's also good for morale on the recovering side - If I take one in the leg, I know I'm not going to get left behind to the tender mercies of the enemy. Even if I'm the one doing the recovering, I know it's because this guy is my brother, and he'd do the same for me. I understand that in a losing situation, it might be a matter of leaving the wounded or losing the unit, and I can intellectually appreciate that...but by the same token, if you are taking the time to collect wounded, it proves that you're not in a losing situation.

This is all just speculation, however. I was curious if anybody knew why the military went to the 9mm in the first place, if there was some rationale behind the lighter round. Interesting note about the Luger, but the 1911 was the US sidearm in that war, right? Obviously the Army wasn't upgunning to the 9mm from a .45 round.

Oh, and regarding wounded Shadowrunners...I can just picture the team faceman taking fire to drag the dying cybersam to the getaway car. The rest of the team is astounded at his loyalty...they didn't get along at all. "Shhhh, it's all over now..." the face says gently. "We saved you." The samurai coughs up blood. "Dumbass, I'm already fraggin' dead." The face looks up, irritated. "Excuse me, but I was talking to the Deltaware."

It's an interesting science experiment. Except they are selling it to people who are depending on it to protect them. And they are falsely claiming NIJ certification to sell it, which is what got them disbarred from USG contracts.

Odd how nobody used that to discourage the use of shields. A timer and a scanning mirror....

They are good, but not indestructible. I've fired several thousands of rounds through each of mine, bought used. I've broken the trigger return springs in both, at Gunsite courses both times. The second time I had the other G22, as the gun jams after a few more rounds.

When the 9x19mm PB was designed (1902) the common European pistol round was roughly .30 caliber (7.62-7.65mm). So I kind of doubt this.

The simplest arguement made for going to 9mm was that it meant we could share pistol ammunition with other NATO allies. Good for logistics, more than anything else. If memory serves, 9mm Parabellum (aka 9mm Luger) was created by taking the "neck down" out of the 7.65mm Luger cartridge; retrofitting existing 7.65mm Luger weapons to fire 9mm Luger meant that you needed new barrels, but the reciever of the weapon should require minimal (if any) refitting as the rim and body of the case are pretty much the same. It's not the ideal military round; frangible 9mm loads can be quite deadly, but hardball 9mm has never gotten general acclaim for having enough "oomph."

The switch to the M9 from the M1911A1 happened in the late '80s, and the Beretta spent the better part of that decade being tested (initially by the Air Force) against a good number of other products during the JSSAP, XM9, and XM10 trials. The Army contested the Air Force's selection of the Beretta, and took over the tests. All of the pistols involved in the Army's tests failed the first couple of runs. The XM9 trials resulted in the Sig P226 and an updated Beretta both passing; Beretta underbid the P226, and was accepted (the P226 was accepted, in low numbers, as the M11). *THESE* trials were contested, some entrants in the XM9 trials participated in the XM10 trials, and the Beretta was again selected.

Before adoption really took off, the whole "cracking slides flying back at the user" thing came up (one injuring a SEAL, two others found during testing) basically boiled down to "you shouldn't run over-powdered ammunition in guns that have seen a lot of use, because they might blow apart on you." Beretta redesigned the weapon so that there's a bit in place to catch the slide in case it fails. And, incidentally, the US Army was encouraged to stop supplying ammunition for the M9 that exceeded the weapon's pressure tolerance specifications. I've never heard of the issue cropping up since then.

In the years since, there's been other BS issues... procuring cheapass magazines got predictable results (jams and magazine failures). It's also been discovered that the heavy phosphate finish called for by earlier magazine contracts creates a magazine that just doesn't work so well in a sandbox; the new batch of (millions of) magazines has turned out to be a lot more reliable in the desert.

An earlier poster mentioned that his experience with the M9 included a lot of "stovepiping," a type of jam usually caused by operator error when the poorly-controlled recoil allows the slide to capture the freshly ejected empty casing as it closes. Usually it's caused by a loose grip (which happens more often with gloves) or "limp-wristed" recoil control (usually a technique problem). Handguns are less forgiving of handling mistakes than rifles (IMO), and it would seem to me that infantry likely spend more time training with their main weapon than with their sidearms.

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Another poster asked why the Glock isn't being adopted by the US military. Some of the primary reasons for this are mechanical: most of the new sidearm contracts have required a both a manual external safety and a double-action trigger. A modification of the basic Glock design might allow for an external manual safety, but a true double-action trigger (which would let the user re-attempt firing a dud round simply by pulling the trigger again, raising and dropping the hammer and (in theory) hitting the round's primer with the firing pin again) would mean a complete redesign of the action. Your basic Glock action is essentially unchanged from the original design from the mid-'80s... I don't see that happening.

As someone who was trained with Tap-Rack-Bang as my response to a failure to fire, attempting a "second strike" on a round that's already failed once seems like a waste of valuable time to me, especially since the failure might be unrelated to the ammunition ("gun out of battery" or even "gun empty, you just haven't realized it yet" will also cause failure to fire). It is, however, a requirement that keeps coming up in contracts, and I'm not the only guy out there with an opinion about what makes a good gun.

My father's a fairly gifted surgeon, but maintenance and mechanical objects aren't his strong point... we have to trick him into getting the oil changed in his car. He bought a first-gen Glock 19 back in... 1992 or so? It was his full-time carry gun for about 12 years, living either inside his waistband in a $12 Uncle Mike's holster or in the grungy knapsack he carried everywhere, and I've lost track of how many times we went to the range and put a few hundred rounds through it in an afternoon. The finish has worn off on the edges and corners, and the tips of the stippling on the grip are nearly river-rock smooth.

In 2004, after 12 years of use and abuse, it started jamming on him occasionally and he moved on to a new gun, having decided he was feeling "traditional" and wanted a .45. I was curious as to what had finally caused it to fail, and after dinner at his house one night he handed it to me to examine. I pulled down the disassembly lever, crept back the slide the half-inch or so that it takes to unlock it, and field-stripped the weapon down into its 4 major pieces (which takes about 10 seconds). He looked over at me in shock and said "how did you do that?"

The inside of the action was layered with a decade's worth of dust, grit, ancient sandwich crumbs, lint, brass spall, burnt powder, and other archaeological detritus that required most of an hour with solvent, a toothpick, and a wire brush to remove. It turned out that he'd never gotten around to learning to strip the weapon (in TWELVE YEARS of carrying it), and would just swab out the barrel, then give the rear-underside of the slide a shot of a solvent/lube combo and rack it a few times before reloading after a trip to the range.

In 2005, I bought a third-gen Glock 23. It's had a few thousand rounds through it so far without a failure. It's a lot cleaner than that old Glock 19, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to be.

[quote name='Shrike30' date='Jan 25 2010, 03:34 AM' post='885798'

An earlier poster mentioned that his experience with the M9 included a lot of "stovepiping," a type of jam usually caused by operator error when the poorly-controlled recoil allows the slide to capture the freshly ejected empty casing as it closes. Usually it's caused by a loose grip (which happens more often with gloves) or "limp-wristed" recoil control (usually a technique problem). Handguns are less forgiving of handling mistakes than rifles (IMO), and it would seem to me that infantry likely spend more time training with their main weapon than with their sidearms.

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As someone who was trained with Tap-Rack-Bang as my response to a failure to fire, attempting a "second strike" on a round that's already failed once seems like a waste of valuable time to me, especially since the failure might be unrelated to the ammunition ("gun out of battery" or even "gun empty, you just haven't realized it yet" will also cause failure to fire). It is, however, a requirement that keeps coming up in contracts, and I'm not the only guy out there with an opinion about what makes a good gun.
[/quote]

Last time I got a stovepipe I changed it into a double-feed because I reflexively tap rack banged instead of sweeping the brass.



Au suject de body armor, apparently Steven Segall now has a line of body armor. I guess it must be plus sized or something.

This is very true...

Keep the Faith

A friend of mine and I both bought brand new Kimber Pro Carry II's within a week of each other. Needless to say, we rushed to the range that weekend to put some rounds through them. My friend kept getting stove pipes left and right, and complained loudly about how he must have gotten a defective pistol, as mine didn't seem to have that problem. Of course, it was actually his technique because he was doing this weird thing with his wrist (kind of allowing the gun to recoil back and to the right just so...). At any rate, I have put thousands of rounds through that gun and have never had a stovepipe (or any other jam for that matter). The scary thing is that guy qualified with a pistol at the FBI academy... course that was probably 9mm and not .45.

I had to practice for a while before I learned not to limp wrist. I'll bet that people who just qualify with weapons haven't learned that. I suppose it's a little bit of a fine point, one thing to understand, and another to be able to do and understand physically.

I had a Kahr PM40 that did something similar, just didn't quite make it back into battery. I talked to the armorer at the place I bought it and he demonstrated to me that it works if you lock it out completely, but it was hard to do. I had no problem with the G22, but the Kahr was killing me. A few weeks later I talked to someone at Kahr and they said that the recoil spring that the first lot shipped with was not quite right and sent me a new one that worked much more reliably.

Interesting. So the gun can be an issue.

Yeah, and I'd use the term "adopted" quite lossely. Many officers, spec-ops and marines kept their .45's. It was a tough sell. By the mid-90's the brass said the 9mm was the standard side arm, but you counld use the .45acp.

Note-anaecdotally, most gun enthusiests prefer the .45 to the 9mm. Another popular cartridge is the .40 S&W (IIRC this is the round the FBI uses). Many think the .40S&W is a good compromise between the two.

S'what most law enforcement agencies are switching over to now, actually. I'm personally rather fond of the round, as it's not quite as expensive as a box of .45 ammo, and not as iffy as the 9mm on stopping power. My Glock is chambered in the .40 S&W.

Though it should be said that if you're any kind of marksman, even a .22 is friggin' deadly. The 9mm is still a very powerful round, and in the right hands, it can be all that you need.

More or less the reason trolls proved very unpopular as PC's in our campaign. If they can't move on their own, nobody is gonna even TRY to drag them to safety. Headshot time.

That just reminded me of this book and the specialized bacteria half the major characters carried at all times.

I believe in the mantra: "The best round is the one you've trained to reliably hit an attacker with."

Personally, I keep a .45 for home defense because I don't want to kill the old lady next door and a 9mm for my carry gun. And I train accordingly.

Also, I've heard from some less-than-authoritative sources that the .40 has some issues with ballistics, but I don't know enough to back that up. Basically, I was told that it has none of the advantages of either round (.45 or 9mm) but most of the drawbacks of both.

And when did this thread devolve into gun-porn?

Well, there's a lot of guns which were retrofitted to accept .40, which is always going to suck, since they weren't engineered with the round in mind. On the other hand, the SIG .40s like the 226 and 229 are some of the most accurate pistols you can find outside of competition .22s.

I don't want to shoot .40 S&W on principle because I feel that I should instead shoot 10mm. The 10mm was so hardcore it was rejected by the FBI, so why would I go out of my way to shoot a toned down version instead of the original?

The IBAs the army uses today can take three, yes you heard right, three 7.62mm rounds before becoming nigh-useless. Then the plate is in itty bitty pieces with cracks the fourth round can slip through. The Dragon Scale that the army passed up on.... Much more

If zero is "much more"....

Drag-owned!

Everything I saw showed it working just fine. But then again perhaps it's just high hopes. That and X-Flex are on my bunker wish list.

Perhaps you missed the whole second page of this thread?

That I did. Didn't miss the physical display, however. It's a lot like the HK416. The only thing that it lacks to make it viable would be lobbyists.